Monday, March 22, 2010
Walmart
A sixteen year old male was arrested on Friday after announcing on the speaker intercom that all the blacks in the store need to leave. I understand the right of people to express how they feel about others, but this just seems like an act of pure evil. I realize that many people are raised in racist families or discriminate because of an act of betrayal that was provided from a particular race, but this is ridiculous. It wasn’t noted whether the person was an employee or not, but I am assuming that he was not. I have heard my share of racial jokes and yes I have laughed at a few, but I don’t understand how people can discriminate against people that they can never meet. If you just think about all of the relationships that could be lifelong that they are missing out on. I have really never personally felt discriminated against and therefore cannot even imagine how awful it must feel. Hopefully the individual will be punished and it is still possible to change his mind about the way he feels toward people. This is just one of the dozens of times that Wal-Mart has been in the middle a discrimination case. There has been lawsuits against Wal-Mart presenting evidence that women employees where making less money than male employees with the same job title. Large corporations, such as Wal-Mart needs to be extremely careful when it comes to cases of discrimination because they can get very expensive.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
After reading this a few questions come to mind: was the teenager joking? If not, what did he hope to accomplish? What is the punishment for his crime? Is saying anything over the intercom without permission considered an offence in which someone can be arrested? Did Walmart press charges? Is the only reason it's a crime because Walmart pressed charges? If so, does saying anything over the intercom receive equal punishment or does the racist remark give it special treatment under the law?
ReplyDeleteThis seems like a pretty bizarre case. I’ve known my share of immature teenagers in my time, but this seems to be immature and blatantly pointless. I don’t know what the kid expected to happen in his favor. Maybe he thought the African Americans in Walmart would actually walk out peacefully... Maybe he thought people would laugh… Maybe he thought kids at school would think of him as “cool”… Not only do all these ends seem dumb and/or trivial, but his actions wouldn’t justifiably achieve any of them…
I also have said and laughed at my share of racist jokes. But the idea is that the humor rests on their inherent falsity combined with social taboo and hopefully, some level of wit. This teenager’s comment seems to only hit the mark of a “social taboo” (taboo). Such jokes are also best left to an audience in which one is comfortable with and a setting not prone to confusion or misinterpretation.
At best the boy was guilty of a harmfully incompetent joke. At worst, the boy is guilty of harmful stupidity.